1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to educational aids and, more particularly, to flash cards and the like.
2. General Background of the Invention
Flash cards are useful learning aids which are in wide use today in schools and in homes. Flash cards typically have a question on one face of the card and an answer on the other. The question face of the card is revealed to a student who tries to determine the answer. Once he has had time to formulate an answer, the card is flipped over, allowing him to view the answer on the back of the card. While flash cards having a question on one face of the card and an answer on the other have helped many children learn arithmetic and other subjects, it is often preferable to display the question and answer at the same time to allow a student to easily mentally associate the answer with the question.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,383 discloses a teaching apparatus including a number of slips having a question and an answer on the same face of the slip. The slips are stacked face-up on a raised platform, and a cover is placed over the stack of slips and the platform. The cover has a window to allow the question, but not the answer, to be revealed to the user. The user views the question, formulates an answer, then removes the slip from beneath the cover to view the answer. This process is repeated and, as the slips are removed, the cover descends. When the user has seen all of the slips, the cover rests on the platform.
While this apparatus is in some ways more advantageous then traditional flash cards in that the question and answer are revealed at the same time to a user when a slip is removed from the stack, it is disadvantageous in that the slips are viewed in a horizontal position, making them difficult to see when the user is sitting at a table on which the apparatus rests. Furthermore, the horizontal orientation of the slips, when the teaching apparatus is in use, essentially limits the number of people who can simultaneously use the teaching apparatus to the number of people who can sit around a table on which it is placed.